Curse on Indian Cricket Team: Lack of Leadership!

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In the history of international cricket we have seen great captains, good captains, mediocre captains and bad captains. What makes them so?
Here is an attempt to learn the secret of great captaincy.

Mike Brearley, Clive Lloyd, Imran Khan, Allan Boarder, Arjuna Ranatunga, Steve Waugh are some of the great cricket captains of our times.

So, “what” or “the lack of what” makes them so?

Mike Brearley:
He took over from Tony Greg. Brearley's batting average was 22.88 from 39 test matches and 24.28 in 25 one day matches are not anything to rave about. But it is English Cricket’s folklore how he brought the best of the best from Ian Botham. Brearley’s record of 18 wins, 4 losses out of 31 matches are great, but do not tell you the whole story. Out of 4 series against Australian cricket team he won 3.
One Ashes series here needs special mention. During the 1981 series, after losing the 1st Test, the then captain Ian Botham resigned. Brearley was asked to take over. He won 3 tests in a row to win the series 4-1. He motivated Ian Botham such that Botham almost single-handedly won these matches for him. This is a clear case of real captaincy. Most of the batsman captains, if their batting form sinks, their quality of leadership also sinks. Brearley was an exception and so he is an exceptional captain.

Clive Lloyd:
He was a blessed man. He had an almost invincible cricket team during most of his captaincy. They used to beat their archrivals Australia hands down most of the time. Clive at his disposal had the giants like Richards, Gordon Grinidge, Desmond Heynes, Alwyn Kalicharan, Faud Bacchus and himself for batting and had Andy Roberts, Late Molcom Marshal, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Colin Croft for bowling. He had excellent wicket keeper alrounder in Jeff dujon. He was lucky to captain the strongest cricket team the Windies ever produced. I cannot judge him exactly. Because his captaincy was never stretched or really tested.
And the West Indian cricket team as a whole was very aggressive. Viv Richards running towards the umpire from slips and appealing was an awesome sight. Few umpires could withstand that sort of pressure from a man with such an aura around him. He wasn’t always nice (like the word “nice”, in Gavaskar’s book!), but the important thing was he was winning.

Imran Khan:
We can safely say, Imran Khan is the first cricket captain of our times who literally built a team of world beaters from scratch. His methods were dictatorial but he got results. He literally molded Wasim Akram, Waquar Yunis and Inzamam Ul Haq from raw clay. Imran Khan made the Pakis believe, for the first time, that they can beat any cricket team in the world. Players who did not toe his line were unceremoniously dumped from the team, take the case of Quasim Omar.
He and Sarfraz Nawaz were the pioneers of “reverse swing bowling”. Till recently “reverse swing” was an exclusive weapon of Pakistan. Imran Khan’s pupils Wasim Akram and Waquar Yunis perfected it to such an extent, that in their prime, they were almost unplayable during slog overs. The whole credit for this metamorphosis should go to Imran Khan.

Allan Border:
He took over when Kim Huges resigned amid tears over loss to the Windies. Border struggled initially, but brick by brick he built the team. Allan Border’s success as the captain of Australian Cricket Team was not over-night. But it reached its crescendo in 1987 World Cup in India where they beat England to lift the World Cup. Border’s batting was very effective but ugly. There was no finesse but he was there when the going got tough.

Steve Waugh:
He got the cricket captaincy from Taylor. He had a very good team to begin with. Quality players like Mcgrath, Mark Waugh, Blewett, Wicket Keeper Ian Healy were primed and ready to boom, when he took over. Steve Waugh was a mean, cunning, end justifies the means type of cricket captain, who was ready to go to any length to win. He was to Australia like Javed Miandad to Pakistan. He was in your face street fighter. I have seen clippings of him claiming catches where the ball had clearly touched the ground. There were no 3rd umpire referrals in his time. Australian sledging took a ugly tinge during Steve Waugh’s captaincy. You cannot get a tougher opponent than Steve Waugh.

Arujuna Ranatunga:
Then we had Arjuna! The smiling assassin from Sri Lanka! Our sub-continents answer to all these greats!
He took a mediocre team, sweated with them, cajoled them and turned them around and made them world beaters. The way he handled Aussie pressure in Australia is cricket captaincy at its best. The boos and heckling of Aussie crowd was taken on without a slight bit of flinching.
When an Aussie umpire no-balled Murali repeatedly for a perceived chucking, Arjuna was willing to pull out of the cricket tour than take Murali off the attack. He was on the verge of walking out with the team, when the umpire in question and the Aussie administration relented and let murali continue bowling.
1996 World Cup cricket was held jointly by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Australian team refused to travel to Sri Lanka to play giving terrorist threat as the reason. Arjuna Ranatunaga, captain of Sri Lankan team blasted that decision and proclaimed, "we want to meet Australia in the final."
Sri Lankan team proved their mettle by reaching the final. Before the final against Australia, Ranatunga the captain, called Shane Warne “an over-rated bowler”. Whiling batting in the finals in Karachi, he belted Warne around and proved his point. And Sri Lanka won the Cricket World Cup of 1996. Just imagine, what guts and courage is needed to do that.
He made Jayasuriya and Kalu to open and they instilled fear in the opposition during the first 15 overs.
And he had a very shrewd and non-assuming coach in Dave Whatmore.

So, being a great batsman or bowler or an allrounder helps. But they are not be all and end all. It takes much more than great batting or bowling skills, which makes for a great captain. If that were the case Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid should become great captains. But it is not that simple.
If I have to put my finger to the secrets of great captaincy, they are:
The Captain should:

1) Stand by his team-mate when the whole world is against you, like Ranatunga did to Muralidharan.
2) Should be able to lead from the front when the chips are down.
3) Instill fear in the opposition by his aura and audacity like Imran Khan and Vivian Richards.
4) Have the mantra, “Winning is everything.” like Steve Waugh.
5) Not worry about being popular or unpopular like Ricky Ponting.
6) Be able to instill courage and bravery in his team-mates.
7) Make his team believe, that he will protect the player and the team from any and every situation like Ranatunga.
8) Be able to get the best out of his players like Brearley did to Botham or Ranatunga to Murali,Jayasuriya and Kaluvitharana.
9) Able to do the unthinkable like Martin Crowe who opened his bowling with Deepak Patel in the 1992 Cricket World Cup.

But if you:

Want to be popular,
Don’t want to step on toes,
Want your image and cricket uniform clean and
Want to look good and sqeeky clean in the advertisements
Want to be a good boy
Are thinking of life after cricket and planning for it,

The job of Indian cricket captaincy is not for you.

We, Indians, unerringly chose and pick the 2nd category for Indian Captaincy and the results are there to see.
Undoubtedly, we have got a bunch of very talented cricketers.
But the Indian captain becomes the side-kick of the coach, who himself is mean and vindictive, it destroys a team and takes it back to stone-age.
It is such a pain to see all these great, immensely talented kids falling flat on their collective face more often than not.